Take That: Robbie loves our new album

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Take That smashed UK box office records as tickets for their 2009 stadium tour were snapped up within hours of going on sale. Newsbeat caught up with the band to find out how they felt about their achievement and what Robbie Williams thinks about their success.The boys have beaten Michael Jackson's 1987 Bad tour record

Gary, congratulations. How does it feel?

Unbelievable. I don't know where this story ends because it just feels like every few months we're going: 'Wow, isn't this unbelievable? Isn't this incredible?' The story just continues to unfold, it's amazing.

Anybody who would have even mildly predicted any of this, I'd say they're lying because you just couldn't predict any of this. Maybe that's one of the good things about it because as the story unravels it's more unbelievable each time.

Did you expect the tour to sell out this quickly?

No, not at all. One of the main reasons we wanted to tour again so quickly was because we had a record number of complaints last time that so many people couldn't get tickets. I think it's well known that when we put our tickets on sale they always sell out really quickly which is why we wanted to do bigger venues this time to try and give people more chance to get hold of tickets.

Mark, what is your reaction?

I got a phone call at about half ten, eleven o'clock to say that the tickets were going really well so I was absolutely made up. I was a bit nervous this morning.

But the band have always been successful, so how come you're so surprised?

I don't know really. It's a lot of tickets we're putting on sale. It's a big thing for us because we're doing the stadiums properly for the first time.The boys decided to stay in rehearsals rather than celebrate

You never know what's going to happen do you? You can't always guarantee people are going to want to come and see the show. We're always a bit nervous. Gary's a very positive member of our band. He's always very optimistic that things will go well. But the rest of us are always a bit like: 'Are you sure?' We're the doubters. But today's been fantastic.

We were in rehearsals when we started to get the news through. At that point we said: 'Should we just stop and go into town and get a few bottles of champagne and celebrate?'

But then we went: 'Nah, we're Take That, we should just stay and rehearse really.' We thought: 'We better practise now we've sold these tickets.'

Gary, you've beaten Robbie's record, what do you think he'll make of that?

You know what, he'll be delighted for us. We played him our new album a couple of months ago and he absolutely loved it.

He's very complimentary and very supportive of us.

Is he tempted to come back?

I don't think so. I think he's very happy that we're getting on with it ourselves.

So what can people expect?

I'll give you a bit of a giveaway. We're going to be singing. We're going to doing lots of hits, lots of songs you'll recognise and it's going to be an amazing act.

Any circus acts?

Really like the idea of putting a high wire right across the stadium and having Mark walk it. That sounds like a great idea of fun. I'll hold his coat.

Mark, can you give anything away?

The title The Circus does obviously open up the mind to being quite extravagant and quite theatrical as far as the show goes. We're wondering whether we can get a few elephants and lions and tigers involved. But we're a bit worried about the animal rights. I've always thought Gary might look quite good in a zebra outfit.

Mark, have you heard any of of Robbie's new stuff?

We've heard quite a bit of his new stuff now. When we were out in LA he played us quite a bit of stuff.

It's really, really good - in fact it's even better than ours! I was a bit gutted. I just want him to get something out. I think he's going to release something in the new year. I was telling him he should do a double album but I don't know if he'll pay any attention to me.

<i>Take That were talking to Newsbeat's Tulip Mazumdar.</i>